With CDP Enterprise and Advanced Edition, you can perform Bare-Metal Restore of Windows dynamic disks.

ReferenceDynamic disk is a physical disk initialized for dynamic storage. Dynamic disks do not use partitions or logical drives. They use a database to track information about dynamic volumes on the disk and about other dynamic disks in the computer. Read more about dynamic disks in http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc737048%28WS.10%29.aspx.

Note for Windows Dynamic Disks and Software RAID

If you are using Windows Software RAID, first restore your System Disk (e.g. C:) while booted from Live CD.

6. Look through the information on the Introduction screen and click "Next."

7. On the next page, select the disk where the Windows system has been previously installed. In our example, we select disk C:\. If you are restoring Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2, you should also restore hidden boot partition (it is the first partition marked for the restore on the screenshot below).

TipYou can restore all disks in a single operation. In this case, select all check boxes.

9.1 On the next screen, select "Select Partition Tables to Restore" option. Selecting this option lets you pick partition tables from the Recovery Point to restore to the target Agent.

Click "Next" to proceed to the following step.

As the "Select Partition Tables to Restore" option is selected, then three (3) additional steps arise:

Select Partition Tables

Map Partition Tables

Restore Partition Tables

9.1.1 Selecting Partition Tables

Select the partition table layout(s) for the filesystems you want to restore.

TipTo display the partition table properties, click on the "Plus" icon in front of the partition table's name.

Content Type - Either MBR (Master Boot Record) or other special type of the partition.

Size - Size of the partition table in gigabytes.

Number Of Sectors - Shows the total number of partition table sectors.

Sector Size - The value in bytes of the sector.

Serial Number - Full serial number of the partition table.

Partitions - The list of partitions allocated with the partition table.

Click "Next" to proceed to the following step.

9.1.2 Mapping Partition Tables

After choosing partition tables to restore, map the selected Partition Table(s) Recovery Points to physical Disks in the Target Agent. From the drop-down menu , select the physical Disks you are going to restore to.

You are provided a table that allows you to map the chosen Partition Tables to physical Disks on the Target Agent. You can see as many lines in the table as the Partition Tables selected for restore. Each Partition Table must be mapped to a physical Disk on the Target Agent before proceeding.

After selecting the Disks, click on "Next" to proceed to the next page.

9.1.3 Restoring Partition Tables

Perform the partition table restore by clicking on the "Restore Partition Tables" button. Once confirmed, the Partition Table Restore will be initiated. A busy indicator will be displayed while the restore is in progress. Restoring the partition table should not take a lot of time because the partition table fits into one sector - 512 bytes.

13. The Restore process will start. It can take a while because a lot of data (several gigabytes) should be transmitted over the network. You can go to the "Task History" screen to monitor the task progress. See Accessing Task History.

The Task History page displays the State, Alert, Type, Progress percentage, and the Started time stamp of the Bare-Metal Restore process.

14. When the process is complete, the server being restored should reboot automatically. If for some reason it does not reboot, you can reboot it by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del or by executing the reboot command in the root shell.

NoticeMake sure you eject the Disk from the CD-ROM drive so the server will boot from the hard Disk.

NoteIf the Disk you used for your Bare-Metal Restore is larger than the Disk you backed up previously, the free space on the new Disk will remain free. You can create a new Partition in this space.

3. Booting Windows

Once the system disk has been restored, boot Windows.

4. Configuring Windows Dynamic Disks

After restore only disk C will contain all the data it should contain. All the other disks - called 'Simple Volumes' - will be created, but remain unformatted. You should use Windows Disk Manager to format them and then restore data to them.

ReferenceDisk Management is a system utility for managing hard disks and the volumes or partitions that they contain. Disk Management enables you to perform most disk-related tasks.